How To Get Rid Of Roaches In Apartment
By: ROS Team
Roach infestation is one of the biggest nightmares that any apartment owner or renter can face.
Whatever their breed, they breed! And these creeping menaces reproduce quickly, with the female German roach able to begin laying eggs a few months after birth. She can then carry dozens of eggs, which mature at the same pace. The natural lifespan of roach can be up to a year, so this means an individual female can produce hundreds of eggs, all of which mature quickly.
So, once you see one, you can be pretty sure there will be other roaches too. It would help if you acted firmly and quickly to eliminate the infestation as soon as possible. But what are the best methods to use to rid your place of roaches?
Get ‘inside the head’ of a Roach
Know your enemy is some solid basic advice. To beat roaches properly you have to know what motivates them. Roaches are either in your home because they are looking for food or seeking shelter. Dealing with them effectively means depriving them of both those things. You need to develop a lethal strategy for eliminating roaches that are based on four core things:
- Stopping roaches from getting it
- Reducing the capacity of roaches to feed and breed
- Killing the cockroaches that have already infested your apartment
- Make sure the bugs don’t breed back
Cut Off Access
Roaches creep through holes and crevices, so even before you start to tackle the ones that may have entered your home, you need to prevent others from entering too! Do an in-depth examination of any possible entry points, remembering they might have sneaked in through holes in pipes or vents too.
Keep Your Place Spotlessly Clean
Roaches feed off grime, so one of your first – and consistent actions – has to be keeping your place absolutely spotlessly clean. At the most basic level, this means taking your garbage out regularly and reducing any waste in your home. You also need to be active in wiping up any spills and dealing with any food debris as you make it. This includes waste fragments as small as crumbs: the roaches won’t distinguish between the volume of food waste, and neither should you. Also, it would be best if you got out of the habit of leaving dirty dishes in the sink. Similarly, don’t leave food out in any way and seal food in containers.
It’s impossible to overstate how vigilant you need to be with grime, and you need to mop floors every day and also address things like grease on stoves and ovens too. Basically, start viewing your home as a battlefield, and in order to make the terrain as difficult as possible for your enemy, you need to create an environment where it has become impossible for them to breed and feed.
Don’t Forget Pet Food!
If you have a pet, don’t imagine that a roach will distinguish between your food and your pet’s. So, keep your pet bowls empty outside during feeding times, and don’t leave pet food waste out. Make sure you clean around the feeding areas too.
Get Rid Of Excess Moisture
Roaches are attracted to certain atmospheres – moisture is one they like best because they need it to survive. This means that any dripping faucets or cracks in bathroom fittings can provide a really attractive draw. Sort these issues in your home and maybe invest in a dehumidifier for the room where the infestation is happening if it is particularly full of moisture.
These are all the steps that you can take to minimize the spread of the roaches in your home, but what should you do to deal with the existing infestation? There’s a variety of solutions available so let’s look at your options.
Natural Solutions
Some of these solutions aren’t necessarily scientifically rigorous, but they all could help. An often-used technique is using citrus, or citric acid in a solution spread over the areas where the infestation has been most extreme. Roaches hate a citric environment, so this might repel them further.
Another trick is to get hold of some boric acid, which is lethal to roaches. You can mix the boric acid with equal amounts of flour and sugar to make a dough. Then break the dough into balls and leave them where you believe you have been infested. Be careful of this method, though, if you have pets since they too can be poisoned by boric acid.
Similar to boric acid in its effects on roaches is baking soda – and it’s an ingredient you’re much more likely to have in the back of your cupboard! Mix the soda with vegetable waste or sugar and leave the deadly natural trap overnight.
Invest In a Specialized Terminator!
For heavier infestations, you should think about a more ‘industrial’ solution and invest in a product developed just to kill roaches. These roach killers come in different forms, from gels to sprays to insect traps. These solutions are scientifically proven and also provide added security and peace of mind because they are longer-term solutions. They don’t just deal with the immediate problem; they can roach-proof your apartment for months! The last thing you want is roaches reappearing somehow within weeks, and roach killers often guarantee a roach-free home for months by creating the most roach-unfriendly environment possible.
You Don’t Need To Get An Exterminator
These different tips and solutions should have dealt with your problem. Removing food waste and cleaning thoroughly will create a much more hostile environment for roaches. Especially if you have taken added steps to stop more getting in. Maybe the natural solutions will have helped you get on top of the problem too. If they haven’t worked, and especially if the situation worsens, then investing in a reliable roach killer is definitely your best bet. It’s worth spending some cash dealing with the problem yourself with reliable help rather than calling in expensive exterminator companies.
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